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Stay-at-home worker ants are fatter

Giant ants of the South American genus Dinoponera are unusual in lacking a separate queen caste. Instead, colonies comprise outwardly identical workers, a subset of which mate and lay eggs. Are the ants inwardly identical as well? Not at all, according to a new study by Chris R. Smith et al in PLoS ONE. Foraging ants are lean, with low fat reserves, while workers and reproductives deep in the nest have ample body fat:

Abstract:
Eusocial species exhibit pronounced division of labor, most notably between reproductive and non-reproductive castes, but also within non-reproductive castes via morphological specialization and temporal polyethism. For species with distinct worker and queen castes, age-related differences in behavior among workers (e.g. within-nest tasks versus foraging) appear to result from physiological changes such as decreased lipid content. However, we know little about how labor is divided among individuals in species that lack a distinct queen caste. In this study, we investigated how fat storage varied among individuals in a species of ant (Dinoponera australis) that lacks a distinct queen caste and in which all individuals are morphologically similar and capable of reproduction (totipotent at birth). We distinguish between two hypotheses, 1) all individuals are physiologically similar, consistent with the possibility that any non-reproductive may eventually become reproductive, and 2) non-reproductive individuals vary in stored fat, similar to highly eusocial species, where depletion is associated with foraging and non-reproductives have lower lipid stores than reproducing individuals. Our data support the latter hypothesis. Location in the nest, the probability of foraging, and foraging effort, were all associated with decreased fat storage.

10 comments on Stay-at-home worker ants are fatter

Anything concerning Dinoponera simply has to be considered “Cool”! I wonder how general the phenomenon is among queenless poneroids and the few other ants that exhibit this social structure?

(Editorial note: I disparage the non-sensical “comprised of”, a common, but erroneous substitution for “composed of”, or “comprising” — And it doesn’t sway me that this annoying usage has become accepted in British journalism, etc. Comprise means include, contain, encompass, and cannot logically be rendered in the passive voice.)

na….. the nanny-state-do-gooders simply ban all trans-fats in ant take-away food and while they are at it add an onerous tax on aphid based sugary drinks, honey-pot ants, and require a living wage for slaves taken on raids…